Ramya Krishnan

Ramya Krishnan (born 15 September 1970), is an Indian actress.

In a career spanning over four decades she has appeared in five languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi.

Ramya has won four Filmfare Awards, three Nandi Awards, and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize.

Ramya was born on 15 September 1970 in Madras (present-day Chennai) to a Telugu father.

She is the niece of Tamil film actor, comedian and former Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha Cho Ramaswamy.

She received initial training in Bharathanatyam, Western, and Kuchipudi dance forms and has given many stage performances.

She started her acting career with the Malayalam film Neram Pularumbol.

Her first release was Vellai Manasu in 1985, a Tamil movie opposite Y. G. Mahendra.

Then she went on to play supporting roles in Tamil films which include Padikkadavan (1985) starring Rajinikanth where she was given a uncredited role and Per Sollum Pillai (1987) starring Kamal Haasan.

Although this was the first movie where she acted, it had a delayed release in 1986.

Her first Telugu film was Bhalae Mithrulu (1986).

In Telugu, she starred with Rajendra Prasad in Madana Gopaludu (1987), Bhama Kalapam (1988), Asthulu Anthasthulu (1988) and Bava Marudula Saval (1988).

She worked in Malayalam films such as Orkkappurathu, Aryan and Anuragi with Mohanlal.

She enjoyed success in Kannada movies as well.

One of her earlier roles as heroine was in Krishna Rukmini opposite superstar Vishnuvardhan.

She played a small role in the Hindi film Dayavan that starred veteran actor Vinod Khanna.

After a series of failures in both Tamil and Telugu, she achieved fame through K. Viswanath's Sutradharulu, released in 1989.

Her breakthrough came from K. Raghavendra Rao directorial movies where she emerged as a commercial romantic diva, due to successful movies such as Alludugaru (1990), Allari Mogudu (1992), Major Chandrakanth (1993) along with Mohan Babu and Allari Priyudu (1993) along with Rajasekhar.

Her biggest Kannada hits include Gadibidi Ganda (1993) and Mangalyam Tantunanena (1998) with Ravichandran.

Ramya made her debut as a heroine in Hindi films with Yash Chopra's Parampara (1993).

She acted in a few more Hindi films including Subhash Ghai's Khalnayak (1993), Mahesh Bhatt's Chaahat (1996), David Dhawan's Banarasi Babu (1997), Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998) along with Amitabh Bachchan and Govinda and Shapath with Mithun Chakraborty.

She played the role of a devoted wife of Sri Annamacharya, which was played by Nagarjuna in the film Annamayya (1997).

In 1998, she played a leading role in Kante Koothurne Kanu.

She received a Nandi Award for Best Actress from the Government of Andhra Pradesh for her performance in the film.

After a four-year break from Tamil cinema, in 1999, Ramya played the female antagonist in Padayappa opposite Rajinikanth.

The critic from Rediff stated "Ramya does a fantastic job. She is vicious to her dying breath, when she declares she will revenge herself in her next life. She does a fabulous tandav of rage when her father commits suicide".

She went onto receive several awards including Filmfare Award for Best Actress - Tamil and Tamil Nadu State Film Award Special Prize.

She then starred in commercially successful films like Budget Padmanabhan and Panchatanthiram.

The critic from Screen called her performance in Panchatanthiram "one of the finest performances ever".

Ramya has also acted in many devotional films including Rajakali Amman (2000), Nageswari (2001), Sri Raja Rajeshwari (2001) and Annai Kaligambal (2003).

She had acted as the mother-in-law of N. T. Rama Rao Jr. in the movie Naa Alludu (2005) marked for her role and later in the film Konchem Ishtam Konchem Kashtam (2009).

She also appeared in a guest role in item songs in Tollywood and Kollywood.

She turned to acting in TV serials before hosting a game show called Thanga Vettai, on Sun TV, and judging a dance show, Jodi Number One, on Vijay TV.

Ramya is stepping in television serials for the first time.

She was seen in Kalasam in two roles.

One of them is Neelambari, a character she played in the Rajinikanth starrer Padayappa.

Her notable film in Malayalam was Ore Kadal (2007) with Mammootty, which received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam.

In 2009, she appeared in Suresh Krissna'S. Arumugam and Rama Narayanan's Kutti Pisasu.

She continued her stay under the Sun TV banner to act in Thangam, Vamsam and Rajakumari.

Later, she acted in supporting roles in Telugu as Ranga The Donga (2010), Yamudiki Mogudu (2012) and in Kannada as Sweety Nanna Jodi (2013 and Maanikya (2014). She acted as Goddess Parvati in Sri Vasavi Kanyaka Parameswari Charitra (2014) with Suman.